1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of dispensers, and more particularly relates to the field of hand held dispensers for flat discs, such as bingo chips.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Bingo, in general, as is well known, is played with cards having a grid of squares on them and with numbers in each square. Numbers are randomly selected or "called" and when a called number corresponds to one on a player's card, that player places a small chip or marker on the square having that number. When a player's card has five chips aligned, either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, on numbers that have been called, that player wins the game.
For the person playing one card, it is relatively easy to pick a chip from a box for example, and place it on the proper square with more than enough time to enjoy the game leisurely. However, bingo is getting ever more popular and it is happening that some players attempt to play more than one card at a time, even as many as five to ten or more. When playing more than one card at a time, it becomes more difficult to place the chips on the card in the proper position easily, without error, especially when the same number might be on several ones of the cards being played at the time. Until the present invention, the only generally well accepted way of placing the chips on the card was manually with the fingers, sometimes picking the chips out of a box one at a time, or sometimes holding many chips in one hand and placing them on the cards with the other. Perhaps other variations have been attempted, but with any of the manual methods, the process was awkward.
There has, in the past, been attempts to make devices that would hold multiple chips and dispense them one at a time directly onto the playing surface, but they have not achieved acceptance, variably because either they were hard to load, would interfere with chips already placed on squares adjacent to the one to be marked, would require special chips that were not accepted, or for other reasons.